7 Quick Shopping Cart Tips = 11% Increase in Sales

If you’re B2C web site is not displaying McAfee’s SECURE trustmark you may as well pack up the shop and go live off the land. At least, that’s what McAfee would like you to believe.

In its new (somewhat self serving) report Digital Window Shopping: The Long Journey to Buy, McAfee found that in a study of 165 million shoppers–my, what a big number you have–sales conversions were 11% higher on those sites that displayed some kind of security seal. In addition, 65% of shoppers take their sweet time making their final purchase–with an average delay of almost 34 hours from decision to handing over their credit card digits.

McAfee goes on to share some rather vanilla advice to etailers, but here’s my take on the topic.

Secure your shopping cart: if you’re asking for a credit card number, you’d be better be showing https and not http in the navigation bar.

Use a padlock: that little yellow padlock that displays when a web site is secure? Yeah, use it too!

Be transparent: I’m not entering my credit card until I know what tax and shipping you’re going to charge.

Don’t make me register first: look, it’s OK to ask me to create an account, but do so only AFTER I have completed my transaction. Asking me prior, may scare me away.

Who, where, how? Who are you, where are you located, and how do I reach you if I have a problem? If your site doesn’t answers those basic questions, I’m off!

Privacy & T&C: We both know I’m not going to actually read this stuff, but if I don’t see the links anywhere in your footer, it will raise a red flag.

Sealed with a kiss: OK, yes I admit, some kind of pretty security seal–a la McAfee–will help too!

Those are my tips. What tips do you have for securing retail transactions and improving conversions?

http://www.twothink.com Brett Burky

I have to agree with this totally. We had a client that didn’t want to pay the money for the seal for that year and we saw a dip in sales.

I told them that it was probably due to the lack of the seal being prominently displayed. All of these 7 aspects you spoke of do really good for paid advertising as well.

http://www.marketingprofessor.com Travis Campbell

Andy- Well said. I think some will need to weigh a decision for McAfee, as it is certainly an investment. If a site doesn’t currently have a seal, and uses authorize.net, they can get the authorize.net verified merchant seal, display it prominently, and test how that impacts conversions.

After customers purchase, ask them why they decided to buy. Use that information (with their permission) as a rotating carousel of customer quotes on the site. I’ve had great success with this approach over any other I’ve taken.

Checkout Systems are All About Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You…

(as a Retailer, that is).

Besides these helpful security tips, I would advise reducing the number of clicks it takes to ascertain all the details, confidence factors, and necessary information people require to place an order. The less clicks I need to fill my cart and go, the more likely you get the sale.

@AndyBeal — This opens up a lot of questions about landing pages, conversion tracking and more. Thanks for providing the simple steps to double digit sales increases!
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